Intellectual property law
Primary rights
Copyright Patents Trademarks Industrial design rights Utility models Geographical indication Trade secrets Related rights Trade names Domain names
Sui generis rights
Database rights Mask work Plant breeders' rights Supplementary protection certificate Indigenous intellectual property
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A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention. Intellectual property ( IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical literary and artistic works inventions and symbols names Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for A trademark or trade mark, represented by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual Industrial design rights are Intellectual property rights that protect the visual design of objects that are not purely utilitarian A utility model is an Intellectual property right to protect Inventions This right is available in a number of national Legislations such as Argentina A geographical indication (GI is a name or sign used on certain products which corresponds to a specific geographical location or origin (eg A trade secret is a Formula, practice, Process, Design, instrument, Pattern, or compilation of Information which Related rights is a term in Copyright law used in opposition to the term " Authors' rights " A trade name, also known as a trading name or a business name, is the name which a Business trades under for commercial purposes although its registered In Computer networking, a domain name is a name given to a collection of network devices that belong to a domain which is an administrative space managed according Sui generis (English pronunciation ( IPA) /ˌsuːiˈdʒɛnərɪs/ roughly "SOO-ee JEN-a-ris" Latin pronunciation /ˌsuːiˈgeneris/ is a Neo-Latin In European Union law, a database right is a legal right introduced in 1996. A mask work is a two or three-dimensional layout or topography of an Integrated circuit (IC or "chip" i Plant breeders' rights (PBR also known as plant variety rights (PVR are Intellectual property rights granted to the breeder of a new variety In European Union member countries a supplementary protection certificate (SPC is a Sui generis, Patent -like Intellectual property Indigenous intellectual property is an umbrella legal term used in national and international forums to identify Indigenous peoples ' special rights to claim (from within Critics of the term " Intellectual property " argue that the increased use of this terminology coincided with a more general shift away from thinking about things like copyright In Anglo-Saxon law, an exclusive right is a de facto non-tangible Prerogative existing in law (that is the power or in a wider sense Right A state is a political association with effective Sovereignty over a geographic Area and representing a Population. The term of a Patent is the maximum period during which it can be maintained into force An invention is a new form composition of matter device or Process.

The procedure for granting patents, the requirements placed on the patentee and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must be new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable. Patent claims are usually in the form of a series of specified elements and corresponding limitations or more precisely Noun phrases following the description portion of the Novelty is a Patentability test according to which an Invention is not patentable if it was already known before the date of filing or before the date of The inventive step and non-obviousness reflect a same general Patentability requirement present in most Patent Laws according to which an In United States patent law, utility is a Patentability requirement In Patent Law, industrial applicability or industrial application is a Patentability requirement according to which a patent can only be granted In many countries, certain subject areas are excluded from patents, such as business methods and mental acts. The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent or exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the invention.

Definition

The term patent usually refers to a right granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof. The additional qualification utility patents is used in countries such as the United States to distinguish them from other types of patents but should not be confused with utility models granted by other countries. A utility model is an Intellectual property right to protect Inventions This right is available in a number of national Legislations such as Argentina Examples of particular species of patents for inventions include biological patents, business method patents, chemical patents and software patents. A biological patent is a Patent relating to an Invention or discovery in Biology. Business method patents are a class of Patents which disclose and claim new Methods of doing business. A chemical patent is an important source of technical and bibliographic information Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition

Some other types of intellectual property rights are referred to as patents in some jurisdictions: industrial design rights are called design patents in some jurisdictions (they protect the visual design of objects that are not purely utilitarian), plant breeders' rights are sometimes called plant patents, and utility models or Gebrauchsmuster are sometimes called petty patents or innovation patents. Industrial design rights are Intellectual property rights that protect the visual design of objects that are not purely utilitarian Plant breeders' rights (PBR also known as plant variety rights (PVR are Intellectual property rights granted to the breeder of a new variety In German and Austrian Patent Laws the Gebrauchsmuster (GebrM also known as German utility model or Austrian utility This article relates primarily to the patent for an invention, although so-called petty patents and utility models may also be granted for inventions.

Certain grants made by the monarch in pursuance of the royal prerogative were sometimes called letters patent, which was a government notice to the public of a grant of an exclusive right to ownership and possession. Letters patent are a type of Legal instrument in the form of an Open letter issued by a Monarch or Government, granting an office right These were often grants of a patent-like monopoly and predate the modern British origins of the patent system. For other uses of the term patent see Land patents, which were land grants by early state governments in the USA. A land patent is evidence of Right, title, and/or interest to a tract of land usually granted by a central, federal, or State This reflects the original meaning of letters patent that had a broader scope than current usage.

Etymology

The word patent originates from the Latin patere, which means "to lay open" (i. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. e. , to make available for public inspection), and more directly as a shortened version of the term letters patent, which originally denoted a royal decree granting exclusive rights to a person. Letters patent are a type of Legal instrument in the form of an Open letter issued by a Monarch or Government, granting an office right A decree is an order made by a Head of state or government and having the force of Law.

Law

Effects

A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention. ^[1] Rather, a patent provides the right to exclude others^[1] from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention for the term of the patent, which is usually 20 years from the filing date. A right is a legal or moral Entitlement or Permission. Rights are of vital importance in theories of Justice and deontological ethics An invention is a new form composition of matter device or Process. The term of a Patent is the maximum period during which it can be maintained into force A patent is, in effect, a limited property right that the government offers to inventors in exchange for their agreement to share the details of their inventions with the public. Like any other property right, it may be sold, licensed, mortgaged, assigned or transferred, given away, or simply abandoned.

The rights conveyed by a patent vary country-by-country. For example, in the United States, a patent covers research, except "purely philosophical" inquiry. A U. S. patent is infringed by any "making" of the invention, even a making that goes toward development of a new invention — which may itself become subject of a patent. In contrast, Australian law permits others to build on top of a patented invention, by carving out exceptions from infringement for those who conduct research (e. Research is defined as Human activity based on Intellectual application in the investigation of Matter. g. for academic purposes) on the invention. ^[2]

A patent being an exclusionary right does not, however, necessarily give the owner of the patent the right to exploit the patent. ^[1] For example, many inventions are improvements of prior inventions which may still be covered by someone else's patent. ^[1] If an inventor takes an existing, patented mouse trap design, adds a new feature to make an improved mouse trap, and obtains a patent on the improvement, he or she can only legally build his or her improved mouse trap with permission from the patent holder of the original mouse trap, assuming the original patent is still in force. A mousetrap is a specialized type of Animal trap designed primarily to catch mice; however it may also trap other small animals On the other hand, the owner of the improved mouse trap can exclude the original patent owner from using the improvement.

Some countries have "working provisions" which require that the invention be exploited in the jurisdiction it covers. Consequences of not working an invention vary from one country to another, ranging from revocation of the patent rights to the awarding of a compulsory license awarded by the courts to a party wishing to exploit a patented invention. The patentee has the opportunity to challenge the revocation or license, but is usually required to provide evidence that the reasonable requirements of the public have been met by the working of invention.

Enforcement

The plate of the Martin ejector seat of the military aircraft, stating that the design is covered by multiple patents in Britain, South Africa, Canada and "others". In Aircraft, an ejection seat is a system designed to rescue the pilot or other crew of an aircraft (usually military in an emergency Dübendorf Museum of Military Aviation. Dübendorf is a municipality in the district of Uster in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.

Patents can generally only be enforced through civil lawsuits (for example, for a U. In law a lawsuit is a civil action brought before a Court in which the party commencing the action the Plaintiff, seeks a legal or equitable remedy S. patent, by an action for patent infringement in a United States federal court), although some territories (such as France and Austria) have criminal penalties for wanton infringement. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich ^[3] Typically, the patent owner will seek monetary compensation for past infringement, and will seek an injunction prohibiting the defendant from engaging in future acts of infringement. An injunction is an Equitable remedy in the form of a Court order, whereby a party is required to do or interact with in certain ways all right or to refrain from In order to prove infringement, the patent owner must establish that the accused infringer practices all of the requirements of at least one of the claims of the patent (noting that in many jurisdictions the scope of the patent may not be limited to what is literally stated in the claims, for example due to the "doctrine of equivalents"). This article discusses the patent doctrine For the trademark doctrine regarding translation of foreign words see Doctrine of foreign equivalents.

An important limitation on the ability of a patent owner to successfully assert the patent in civil litigation is the accused infringer's right to challenge the validity of that patent. Civil courts hearing patent cases can and often do declare patents invalid. The grounds on which a patent can be found invalid are set out in the relevant patent legislation and vary between countries. Often, the grounds are a sub-set of the requirements for patentability in the relevant country. Within the context of a national or multilateral body of Law, an Invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted Whilst an infringer is generally free to rely on any available ground of invalidity (such as a prior publication, for example), some countries have sanctions to prevent the same validity questions being relitigated. Novelty is a Patentability test according to which an Invention is not patentable if it was already known before the date of filing or before the date of An example is the UK Certificate of contested validity. In United Kingdom patent law, a certificate of contested validity is an order usually made by the Patents Court (a division of the High Court) or Patents

Patents in force in 2000

The vast majority of patent rights, however, are not determined through litigation, but are resolved privately through patent licensing. Patent licensing agreements are effectively contracts in which the patent owner (the licensor) agrees not to sue the licensee for infringement of the licensor's patent rights, usually in return for a royalty or other payment. The verb license or grant license means to give permission The noun license is the document demonstrating that permission A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do or refrain from doing an act which is enforceable in a court of law It is common for companies engaged in complex technical fields to enter into dozens of license agreements associated with the production of a single product. Moreover, it is equally common for competitors in such fields to license patents to each other under cross-licensing agreements in order to gain access to each other's patents. A cross-licensing agreement is a Contract between two or more parties where each party grants rights to their Intellectual property to the other parties A cross license agreement could be desirable to the mouse trap developers discussed above, for example, because it would permit both parties to profit off each other's inventions.

The United Nations Statistics Division reports that the United States was the top market for patents in force in 2000 closely followed by the EU and Japan. The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD under the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA serves as the central mechanism within the Secretariat

Ownership

In most countries, both natural persons and corporate entities may apply for a patent. The entity or entities then become the owners of the patent when and if it issues. However, it is nearly always required that the inventor or inventors be named and an indication be given on the public record as to how the owner or owners acquired their rights to the invention from the inventor or inventors.

In the United States, however, only the natural person(s) (i. e. the inventor/s) may apply for a patent. If a patent issues, then each person listed as an inventor owns the patent separately from the other. For example, if two inventors are listed on a patent, then each one may grant licenses to the patent independently of the other, absent an agreement to the contrary.

It is common in the United States for inventors to assign their ownership rights to a corporate entity. An assignment (Latin cessio) is a term used with similar meanings in the Law of Contracts and in the law of Real estate. ^[4] Inventors that work for a corporation, for example, often are required to assign their ownership rights to their corporation as a condition of their employment. Independent inventors often assign their ownership rights to a single entity so that only one entity has the right to grant a license.

The ability to assign ownership rights increases the liquidity of a patent as property. Market liquidity is a Business, Economics or Investment term that refers to an Asset 's ability to be easily converted through an act of buying Inventors can obtain patents and then sell them to third parties. The third parties then own the patents as if they had originally made the inventions themselves.

Governing laws

The grant and enforcement of patents are governed by national laws, and also by international treaties, where those treaties have been given effect in national laws. The history of Patents and patent Laws is generally considered to have started in Italy with a Venetian Statute of 1474 which was issued by the Republic of Venice Patents are legal instruments intended to encourage Innovation by providing a limited " Monopoly " to the Inventor (or their assignee Patent prosecution describes the interaction between an applicant or their representative and a Patent office with regard to a Patent, or an application for A patent application is a request pending at a Patent office for the grant of a Patent for the Invention described and claimed by that application Within the context of a national or multilateral body of Law, an Invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted Patent infringement is the act of utilizing a patented Invention without permission from the Patent holder The verb license or grant license means to give permission The noun license is the document demonstrating that permission European patent law covers a wide range of Legislations including National Patent Laws the Strasbourg Convention of 1963 the Japanese patent law is based on the first-to-file principle and is mainly given force by the Patent Act (特許法 Tokkyohō) of Japan which consists of United States patent law was established "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective This is a list of legal concepts relating to patents, including special types of Patents and Patent applications Legal concepts Patents are, therefore, territorial in nature.

Commonly, a nation forms a patent office with responsibility for operating that nation's patent system, within the relevant patent laws. A patent office is a Governmental or Intergovernmental organization which controls the issue of Patents List of patent offices For a The patent office generally has responsibility for the grant of patents, with infringement being the remit of national courts.

There is a trend towards global harmonization of patent laws, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) being particularly active in this area. The TRIPs Agreement has been largely successful in providing a forum for nations to agree on an aligned set of patent laws. TRIPS redirects here For the new microprocessor design see TRIPS architecture. Conformity with the TRIPs agreement is a requirement of admission to the WTO and so compliance is seen by many nations as important. This has also led to many developing nations, which may historically have developed different laws to aid their development, enforcing patents laws in line with global practice.

A key international convention relating to patents is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, initially signed in 1883. The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed in Paris, France, on March 20, 1883, was one of the first Intellectual The Paris Convention sets out a range of basic rules relating to patents, and although the convention does not have direct legal effect in all national jurisdictions, the principles of the convention are incorporated into all notable current patent systems. The most significant aspect of the convention is the provision of the right to claim priority: filing an application in any one member state of the Paris Convention preserves the right for one year to file in any other member state, and receive the benefit of the original filing date. In Patent, Industrial design rights and Trademark Laws a priority right or right of priority is a time-limited Right, triggered Because the right to a patent is intensely date-driven, this right is fundamental to modern patent usage.

The authority for patent statutes in different countries varies. In the United States, the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme Law of the United States. The United States Congress is the bicameral Legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses . . " The laws Congress passed are codified in Title 35 of the United States Code and created the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Title 35 of the United States Code is a title of United States Code regarding patent law. The United States Patent and Trademark Office ( PTO or USPTO) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues Patents to In the UK, substantive patent law is contained in the Patents Act 1977 as amended. ^[5]

In addition, there are international treaty procedures, such as the procedures under the European Patent Convention (EPC) [administered by the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg)], and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) (administered by WIPO and covering 137 countries), that centralise some portion of the filing and examination procedure. The Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, commonly known as the European Patent Convention (EPC is a multilateral Treaty The European Patent Organisation ( EPO or EPOrg) is a public international organisation created in 1977 to grant Patents in Europe under The Patent Cooperation Treaty ( PCT) is an International Patent Law Treaty, concluded in 1970 The World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO) is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations. Similar arrangements exist among the member states of ARIPO, OAPI, the analogous treaties among African countries. The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization ( ARIPO) formerly African Regional Industrial Property Organization, is an intergovernmental The Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle or OAPI ( African Intellectual Property Organization) is an Intellectual property organization

Application and prosecution

Main articles: Patent application and Patent prosecution

A patent is requested by filing a written application at the relevant patent office. A patent application is a request pending at a Patent office for the grant of a Patent for the Invention described and claimed by that application Patent prosecution describes the interaction between an applicant or their representative and a Patent office with regard to a Patent, or an application for A patent application is a request pending at a Patent office for the grant of a Patent for the Invention described and claimed by that application The application contains a description of how to make and use the invention and, under some legislations, if not self evident, the usefulness of the invention. The patent application may or must also comprise "claims". Claims define the invention and embodiments for which the applicant wants patent rights.

To obtain a patent, an applicant must provide a written description of the invention in sufficient detail for a person skilled in the art (i. Most Patent Law systems require that a Patent application disclose a claimed Invention in sufficient detail for the notional Person skilled e. , the relevant area of technology) to make and use the invention. This written description is provided in what is known as the patent specification, which is often accompanied by illustrating drawings. A patent application is a request pending at a Patent office for the grant of a Patent for the Invention described and claimed by that application Some countries, such as the United States, further require that the specification disclose the "best mode" of the invention (i. e. , the most effective way, to the best of the inventor's knowledge, to make or practice the invention). ^[6] In addition, at the end of the specification, the applicant must provide one or more claims that define what the applicant regards as their invention. Patent claims are usually in the form of a series of specified elements and corresponding limitations or more precisely Noun phrases following the description portion of the A claim, unlike the body of the specification, is a description designed to provide the public with notice of precisely what the patent owner has a right to exclude others from making, using, or selling. Claims are often analogized to a deed or other instrument that, in the context of real property, sets the metes and bounds of an owner's right to exclude. The claims define what a patent covers. A single patent may contain numerous claims, each of which is regarded as a distinct invention.

For a patent to be granted, that is to take legal effect, the patent application must meet the legal requirements related to patentability. Within the context of a national or multilateral body of Law, an Invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted

Once a patent application has been filed, most patent offices examine the application for compliance with the requirements of the relevant patent law. A patent application is a request pending at a Patent office for the grant of a Patent for the Invention described and claimed by that application Within the context of a national or multilateral body of Law, an Invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted If the application does not comply, the objections are usually communicated to the applicant or their patent agent or attorney, who can respond to the objections to attempt to overcome them and obtain the grant of the patent. A patent attorney is an Attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining Patents and acting in all matters and procedures

In most countries, there is no requirement that the inventor build a prototype or otherwise reduce his or her invention to actual practice in order to obtain a patent. The description of the invention, however, must be sufficiently complete so that another person with ordinary skill in the art of the invention can make and use the invention without undue experimentation.

Once granted the patent is subject in most countries to renewal fees, generally due each year,^[7] to keep the patent in force. Maintenance fees or renewal fees are fees that are paid to maintain a granted Patent in force

In Egbert v. Lippmann,104 U. Egbert v Lippmann, 104 US 333 ( 1881) was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that public use of an Invention S. 333 (1881) (the "corset case"), the United States Supreme Court affirmed a decision that an inventor who had "slept on his rights for eleven years" without applying for a patent could not obtain one at that time. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. This decision has been codified as 35. U. S. C. §102, which bars an inventor from obtaining a patent if the invention has been in public use for more than one year prior to filing.

Economics

For more details on this topic, see Economics and patents. Patents are legal instruments intended to encourage Innovation by providing a limited " Monopoly " to the Inventor (or their assignee

Rationale

There are four primary incentives embodied in the patent system: to invent in the first place; to disclose the invention once made; to invest the sums necessary to experiment, produce and market the invention; and to design around and improve upon earlier patents. In the field of Patents the phrase "to design around ” means to invent an alternative to a patented Invention that does not infringe the patent’s claims ^[8]

1. Patents provide incentives for economically efficient research and development (R&D). The phrase research and development (also R and D or more often R&D) according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers Many large modern corporations have annual R&D budgets of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. A corporation is a separate legal entity usually used to conduct business Without patents, R&D spending would be significantly less or eliminated altogether, limiting the possibility of technological advances or breakthroughs. Corporations would be much more conservative about the R&D investments they made, as third parties would be free to exploit any developments. In Economics, Collective bargaining, Psychology and Political science, "free riders" are those who consume more than their fair share of a resource This second justification is closely related to the basic ideas underlying traditional property rights. Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual
2. In accordance with the original definition of the term "patent," patents facilitate and encourage disclosure of innovations into the public domain for the common good. The term innovation means a new way of doing something It may refer to incremental radical and revolutionary changes in thinking products processes or organisations The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone The common good is a term that can refer to several different concepts If inventors did not have the legal protection of patents, in many cases, they would prefer or tend to keep their inventions secret. An inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method form device or other useful means Awarding patents generally makes the details of new technology publicly available, for exploitation by anyone after the patent expires, or for further improvement by other inventors. Furthermore, when a patent's term has expired, the public record ensures that the patentee's idea is not lost to humanity. The term of a Patent is the maximum period during which it can be maintained into force
3. In many industries (especially those with high fixed costs and either low marginal costs or low reverse engineering costs — computer processors, software, and pharmaceuticals for example), once an invention exists, the cost of commercialization (testing, tooling up a factory, developing a market, etc. ) is far more than the initial conception cost. (For example, the internal "rule of thumb" at several computer companies in the 1980s was that post-R&D costs were 7-to-1). Unless there is some way to prevent copies from competing at the marginal cost of production, companies will not make that productization investment.

One effect of modern patent usage is that a small-time inventor can use the exclusive right status to become a licensor. This allows the inventor to accumulate capital from licensing the invention and may allow innovation to occur because he or she may choose to not manage a manufacturing buildup for the invention. Thus the inventor's time and energy can be spent on pure innovation, allowing others to concentrate on manufacturability. ^[9]

Costs

The costs of preparing and filing a patent application, prosecuting it until grant and maintaining the patent vary from one legislation to another. The European Patent Office estimated in 2005 that the average cost of obtaining a European patent (via a Euro-direct application, i. e. not based on a PCT application) and maintaining the patent for a 10 year term was around 32 000 Euro. ^[10] Since the London Agreement entered into force on May 1, 2008, this estimation is however no longer up-to-date, since fewer translations are required. The London

Criticism

Patents from time to time have been criticized for being granted on already known inventions. In 1938, for example, R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome wrote:^[11]

“At present (1938), the (US patent) files, are so extraordinarily complex and the items so multitudinous that a veritable army of governmental servants is required to attend them and sort them into some order of distinguishable categories to which reference may be made when corresponding with patent applicants for the purposes of examiner citation of “prior art” disclosure. Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller ( July 12, 1895 &ndash July 1, 1983) was an American Architect, Author A geodesic dome is an almost spherical shell structure based on a network of Great circles ( Geodesics lying approximately on the surface of a Sphere This complexity makes it inevitable that the human-equation involved in government servants relative to carelessness or mechanical limitations should occasion the granting of multitudes of “probably” invalid patent claims. ”

Patents have also been criticized for conferring a "negative right" upon a patent owner, permitting them to exclude competitors from using or exploiting the invention, even if the competitor subsequently develops the same invention independently. This may be subsequent to the date of invention, or to the priority date, depending upon the relevant patent law (see First to file and first to invent). In Patent, Industrial design rights and Trademark Laws a priority right or right of priority is a time-limited Right, triggered First to file and first to invent are legal concepts that define who has the right to the grant of a Patent for an Invention. ^[12]

Patents may hinder innovation as well in the case of "troll" entities. A holding company, pejoratively known as a "patent troll", owns a portfolio of patents, and sues others for infringement of these patents while doing little to develop the technology itself. Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its Patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered unduly ^[13]

Another theoretical problem with patent rights was proposed by law professors Michael Heller and Rebecca Sue Eisenberg in a 1998 Science article. Michael Heller is a law professor known for his focus on property law ^[14] Building from Heller's theory of the tragedy of the anticommons, the professors postulated that intellectual property rights may become so fragmented that, effectively, no one can take advantage of them as to do so would require an agreement between the owners of all of the fragments. The tragedy of the anticommons is a Neologism coined by Michael Heller to describe a coordination breakdown where the existence of numerous rights holders frustrates

History

Main article: History of patent law

U. The history of Patents and patent Laws is generally considered to have started in Italy with a Venetian Statute of 1474 which was issued by the Republic of Venice S. Patents granted, 1800–2004. ^[15]

There is evidence suggesting that something like patents was used in certain ancient Greek cities. The creator of a new recipe was granted an exclusive right to make the food for one year, and a similar practice existed in some Roman cities.

Patents in the modern sense originated in 1474, when the Republic of Venice enacted a decree by which new and inventive devices, once they had been put into practice, had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain the right to prevent others from using them. The Most Serene Republic of Venice ((Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta or Repùblica de Venesia Serenissima Repubblica ^[16]

England followed with the Statute of Monopolies in 1623 under King James I, which declared that patents could only be granted for "projects of new invention. England 's Statute of Monopolies of 1623 (21 Jac 1 c3 while generally condemning monopolies, provided the true and first Inventor of a given James VI and I (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625 was King of Scotland as James VI, and King of England and King of Ireland as James " During the reign of Queen Anne (1702–1714), the lawyers of the English Court developed the requirement that a written description of the invention must be submitted. Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714 became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702 succeeding William III of England and II of ^[17] These developments, which were in place during the Colonial period, formed the basis for modern English and United States patent law.

In the United States, during the colonial period and Articles of Confederation years (1778–1789), several states adopted patent systems of their own. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, also the Articles of Confederation was the governing Constitution of the alliance of thirteen independent and The first Congress adopted a Patent Act, in 1790, and the first patent was issued under this Act on July 31, 1790 (and the subject matter of that patent was for the making of potash). Potash (or carbonate of potash) is an impure form of Potassium carbonate ( K 2 CO3)

See also

• List of patent legal concepts
• List of patent related topics
• List of people associated with patent law

References

External links

• Directory of Intellectual Property Offices, maintained by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
• Patents offices, maintained by the British Library